


A Man Or No

by Resonant



Category: due South
Genre: Backstory, Community: cliche_bingo, F/M, Genderbending, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-20
Updated: 2009-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:05:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resonant/pseuds/Resonant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which young Ray doesn't know what hit him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man Or No

First thing Ray thought when he heard the footsteps was, _Kowalski, you dumbass, you ain't a cop yet._

Because, yeah, it was a pretty solid neighborhood -- hell, he was half a mile from Stella's apartment, and Stella wouldn't live anywhere shaky -- but he was still in Chicago, and it was still the middle of the night. What had he _thought_ was going to happen? That somehow bad guys were going to know he was in his second semester and just, what, shake in their boots? He knew perfectly well bad guys had an APB out on him. Ray Kowalski, famous wimp. Mess with him every chance you get.

He could hear his own footsteps, too, echoing off the concrete wall of the underpass, speeding up just a little while he tried to talk himself out of the sinking feeling that something awful was about to happen. Maybe it was nobody, just another moron like him too restless to wait for the el. Or some crook who was hoping for easier pickings than somebody young, able-bodied, and male. Or --

Or maybe the next thing he would feel would be the cold line of a knife blade against his neck. Like ... oh, shit.

"You got money." The voice was strange, high and clear, and then passing headlights made it far enough under the street for him to see why. Jeez, criminals got younger every year. This one wasn't even old enough to shave yet.

Hope flared briefly. "Look, kid, you don't --"

"Shut up." Ray didn't feel the knife move, but he felt his own blood make a warm path down into his collar, and his pulse kicked up. Shit. That sucker was _sharp,_ and the kid knew something about how to use it, too. No waving it around and giving Ray a chance to take it from him. He just snugged it up where it could do the most damage and held it steady.

Kid's hands weren't even shaking.

Ray liked to imagine himself as somebody who maybe could be a real cop one day. But here and now, when push came to shove, it turned out he wasn't man enough to fight when there was a blade two breaths away from his jugular.

At least he wasn't going to wet his pants this time. That was some comfort.

Wallet out of his back pocket. Sixty-five dollars in cash, bunch of cards it would be a pain in the ass to replace. Grandpa Jajo's watch off his wrist. He tried not to make any unnecessary movements or do anything that would piss anybody off. Fear and humiliation made a hot weight somewhere low in his belly. The guys in Weaponless Defense were going to laugh their asses off when they heard about this.

The kid stayed where it was hard for Ray to see him, but occasional headlights gave him enough for a rough description. White kid, maybe five-two, maybe fifteen, face filthy, hair scraggly and colorless, pointed nose and chin like a girl, ragged Goodwill clothes. He stank of old sweat, but no booze or drugs that Ray could catch a whiff of. Not much to ID.

"Good," the kid said, and Ray had time to take a breath before the tip of the knife dipped down the back of his T-shirt collar and hooked his gold chain. "Now this."

Ray remembered Stella's cool fingers fastening it at the back of his neck, just where the knife point rested -- _"Don't lose it, Ray. This is real gold." "I'm not going to lose it. I'll wear it every minute. I'll never take it off."_ And all of a sudden it was just too much. His reaction went from flight to fight so fast that the rush of anger and adrenaline made him lightheaded.

"You know what? No. Fuck you. Go ahead, stab me, but you'll have to take that chain off my corpse if you want it, asshole." The last word was so loud it rang off the concrete of the underpass.

Now his nerves were singing. He gave a hard shove, and the kid stumbled back a couple of steps -- and laughed. Laughed! And took off running. In thirty seconds it was like he'd never been there.

Ray stood there with his heart pounding, feeling like he'd just chugged a pot of coffee and run a mile, torn between _I'm the king of the mountain_ and _Shit, if I'd found my balls sooner, I wouldn't have to tell Mom about that watch._

* * *

It was on his mind all day, how he was going to tell Stella, whether there was any way to say it that wasn't a lie but didn't make him sound like the world's biggest wimp. Kissing came first, though, and then hugging and more kissing and her stopping to take off her shoes and pantyhose, and then her hands on the back of his neck and laughing at the boniness of her knees as she climbed over his lap to kiss him some more. It almost got left till afterwards, except when he squirmed against something flat and square and uncomfortable in the pocket of her work skirt and she giggled.

"OK, what?"

She knelt up so he could get his hand into her pocket -- the flowery skirt pulled down a little to show a strip of pale stomach, and he had an impulse to give up on the pocket and just lick her there instead. But then his fingers touched something they knew almost as well as they knew his own body, and his face flamed up hot as he pulled and tugged and brought out his green surfer wallet, with Jajo's watch stuck under the Velcro.

Holy shit. No way. No way.

She was beaming like she did when she'd bought him a present she was really proud of. "You didn't recognize me, Ray? Seriously?"

"How could I? You were _dirty."_

She shimmied her hips. "I can be a lot dirtier."

"How'd you learn to handle a knife like --" But he'd taught her himself, come home from the academy and showed her everything: _Now an amateur, he's waving it around -- he hopes nobody will have the balls to mess with a guy with a knife. But a pro will hold it underhand, blade down, like this, and you'll never even see it until it cuts you ..._ "Jesus, how'd you do it? You didn't even _smell_ like you."

"I was good, wasn't I?" She leaned her whole body down on his, flattening him against the back of the couch. "I was _great."_

And Ray would swear to _God_ he hadn't been turned on while it was happening -- he was a little weird sometimes but not sick -- but now in his head it was _Stella,_ soft sweet-smelling Stella, crowding him up against the underpass with a blade at his neck, and, jesus, that did him in.

She bent her golden head and licked right where the cut was -- nearly healed over already, but it stung in the heat of her mouth, and his hips thrust convulsively, and she laughed and sat up and shook back her hair.

"Take your clothes off," she said in the kid's rough-soft voice, and maybe he _was_ sick. His face went hot again, and his hands shook on his fly buttons.

She laid him out naked on his own bed, and then she stood and looked at him, head to one side, considering. And then, holding his gaze, she reached under her skirt, tossed a pair of coffee-colored lace underpants on the floor, and stalked over. "Oh, god," he whined as she threw her leg over his body and rubbed her shocking wetness down against him. "Stella," he pleaded, reaching for her, but all he could get his hands on was cloth, silky shirt and rough-textured skirt frustrating his hands while she rocked and rubbed herself off on his cock like it was her toy, rubbed herself on him and on her hand under the skirt until he knew by the sounds she made that she was coming.

When her breath slowed, she shifted position, slowly, and pulled his cock inside her just as he pulled the top loose from the waistband and got his hand on skin at last, and they both gasped. She was hot inside, tight like she always was right after she came, and she kissed him hard and wet while he pulled up the skirt with the other hand to grab her ass and feel the flexing muscles there, slide his thumb down where he could feel his cock working inside her. She pitched upright again and pulled his hand around front to rub her clit, and he said, "You were great, you were amazing, shit, Stell, I was afraid of you," and her lips pulled back like a snarl as she came again, rocking and shimmying so he had to hold her hips still and push up to come deep inside her.

She lay down on his chest then and tucked her hand under the gold chain, face turned away from him.

"Why'd you do it?"

"To see what you'd do."

"But -- shit, Stell, I could have hurt you. I could have broken your arm."

She raised her chin. "Yeah. Maybe."

"What would you have done if I'd given it to you?"

"I think I would have killed you."

_Fuck._ He was some kind of bent, all right, because it made him hard again so fast he couldn't get breath to answer.

She had a look he couldn't read, fierce and distant. "Still think I'm a good girl?"

Oh, god. He could have this with her. He could have anything with her. He closed his eyes. "You're _perfect."_

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2009 Cliche Bingo in the category "Fairy Tales and Folklore."
> 
> The folklore in question is the ballad, "Sovay, or The Female Highwayman":
> 
> Sovay, Sovay, all on a day,  
>  She dressed herself in man's array.  
>  With sword and pistol all by her side,  
>  To meet her true love,  
>  To meet her true love away did ride.
> 
> As she was riding over the plain,  
>  She met her true love and bid him stand.  
>  "Your gold and silver, kind sir," she said,  
>  "Or else this moment,  
>  Or else this moment your life I'll have."
> 
> When she had robbed him of his store,  
>  She said, "Kind sir, there is one thing more:  
>  A golden ring which I know you have.  
>  Deliver it,  
>  Deliver it your sweet life to save."
> 
> "That golden ring a token is.  
>  My life I'll lose, the ring I'll save."  
>  Being tender-hearted just like a dove,  
>  She rode away,  
>  She rode away from her true love.
> 
> Next morning in the garden green,  
>  Just like true lovers they were seen.  
>  He spied his watch hanging from her clothes,  
>  Which made him blush,  
>  Which made him blush like any rose.
> 
> "What makes you blush at so silly a thing?  
>  I thought to have had your golden ring.  
>  It was I who robbed you all on the plain,  
>  So here's your gold,  
>  So here's your gold and your watch again.
> 
> "All I intended was for to know  
>  If you would be a man or no.  
>  But if you had giv'n me that ring," she said,  
>  "I'd have pulled the trigger,  
>  I'd have pulled the trigger and shot you dead."
> 
> It was the blush that inspired the story.
> 
> Thanks to Cesca for beta!


End file.
